September 2, 2012

Though both Sly and Hulsey are Madison lefties — click the tags below — Sly does a tough interview, with the refrain: People are "creeped out."

Hulsey has some stock phrases he repeats: it was "a potentially dangerous situation" (a boy was splashing 2 "little girls"), he'd been out in the "extreme heat" and wanted to "cool off," the splashing was "wild," "I admit I made a mistake," he "startled" the boy, in "a foot of water," the police officers "didn't write down a word" of his story, and he was "flabbergasted" that they wrote him a ticket. He tries to frame the story in terms of police abuse, and Sly practically shouts him down: Then why did you plead no contest?!

Hulsey's voice sounds whiny and sporadically spikes to a high pitch. He hedges about whether he flipped the boy's innertube over, but seems to concede it in the end.

Hulsey keeps saying he was not taking photographs of the children but of the sunset, but here's the location of the beach. Would that be a sunset vantage point on July 4th? The police reportdoesn't seem to have even the approximate time of the incident [says the incident took place at 7:24 PM. Sunset occurred at 8:40 PM. Would children be playing by themselves in the lake at that hour? [ADDED: It wasn't 8:40, but more than an hour before sunset. I'm still surprised that children would be allowed to swim in the lake at that time (or really anytime) without closer supervision.]

(Here's the Isthmus article that Sly refers to. Here's our discussion a few days ago about the incident.)

Hulsey is the Democratic candidate for the Wisconsin state assembly — in my district. The incident occurred on July 4th, but the first we heard of the story was when the Isthmus story came out on August 29th. The primary was August 14th, and Hulsey is, conveniently, unopposed in the general election. Nice timing.

ADDED: Rereading the police report, I get the impression that Hulsey was trying to play with the children. The children said that Hulsey had his "arms up off to his sides and his mouth was wide open but making no sound" — as if he was "trying to sneak up" on the boy. According to the report, "Brett then 'shocked' [the boy] out of his inflatable so that he fell into the water." His hands touched the inflatable and the boy, and the man and the boy started splashing each other, with Hulsey saying "something to the effect of 'do you want to have a splash fight with me?'"

That sounds like a man trying to play with kids. The boy was "happy" at first, but soon felt "confused," according to one of the girls (as reported by the police), and the girl said that made her feel "strange" because she "didn't really know what he could do."

Now, that sounds awkward, and you can think about how creepy it is and whether you'd call the police if your kids told you about a man doing that (and then taking photographs). But here's the thing: If he was trying to play, why doesn't he say that? Why does he say over and over that he was dealing with "a potentially dangerous situation"?

155 comments:

I'm pretty sure Bob Dylan is working on the protest song to this blatant display of injustice. I'm guessing it goes something like this:

http://www.bobdylan.com/us/songs/hurricane

Camera shots ring out as day turns to nightEnter the Assemblyman from the upper beachHe sees the wild child's war on girlsCries out, “My God, he's splashing them all!”Here comes the story of the HulseycaneThe man the authorities came to blameFor somethin’ that he only sorta donePut in the Isthmus, but one time he could-a beenThe leader of the the Progs.

I have met Brett many times. A friend of mine who knows him better believes that the guy has some form of Aspergers syndrome. The guy seems to lack some basic social skills that the rest of us take for granted. He clearly wants to be liked and goes over backwards trying to impress people and befriend them. You could see that with him agreeing to meet with Meade to talk last year. Most pols, Dem or Rep, would tell an obvious rabble rouser for the other party to go fuck themselves in polite terms.

Ann, how do you know that the parents did not want to make trouble for Brett and decided to call the cops on him? Reading the reports it is hard to see why he got a citation. Ann, why are you not asking why the cops did not just give a more appropriate warning, telling Brett it is not appropriate in this day and age to interact with other people's kids without getting permission from their parents?

Also, I find it creepy that Meade acts all concerned and claims this should be taken seriously but then turns around and makes sure he is the first to comment on this thread with some Dylan parody. Hey lets make hay and dance on other people's foibles! Nice hobby Ann and Meade.

I don't understand this incident at all. I don't understand what Hulsey was doing. I don't understand why the police were called. I don't understand what the children were doing. I don't understand why pictures were being taken or what the problem was with taking pictures of the lake.

The timing of the release of the information WRT the primary is interesting. But in the end it doesn't matter. Hulsey's a lefty in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Madison--limousine liberal land--and so he's almost guaranteed re-election no matter what he does.

I have three children, and I don't understand this general prohibition of no pictures of anything if children are in the line of sight. If someone is stalking you and taking pictures, yes, that's creepy. But this idea that you can take no photos wherein strangers might incidentally appear is bizarre.

I don't know - sounds he lightly discipled a kid in pubic and was soundly reminded that you can't do that in America anymore. He felt it wasn't worth a pubic brewhaha so he's just capitulating. 'Course he could be a wacko perv too.

Hulsey believes, from what I gather, the kids shouldn't have been there at that time of day, dressed so scantily, having so much fun.

Hulsey sounds like a sick bastard, because we know the jackwagon of filth terrorized a mother to the extent she called police and charges were brought against his perp behavior.

Now if any of you here have a reason to question the police and their word in this instance, you get your ass typing that reason right now, otherwise you join the sons of bitches alleging corruption without any evidence.

Yeah. Too little information. One of the big attractions of this blog for me is pictures of Madison. So I'm really put off by the idea that taking pictures at the beach is a suspicious activity. Should we all practice baking cakes with files in them so we can break Althouse and Meade out of stir? (No law professor has a chance in hell of arguing her way out of jail.)

Read my previous post. I did raise those questions. But it's hard to go there when Hulaey failed to fight the charge. He should have defended his reputation as Sly said pretty directly. Why didn't he? In politics, you have to be able to trust a person. He screwed himself politically. Why?

So I'm really put off by the idea that taking pictures at the beach is a suspicious activity.

Suspicious?

How about Ann Romney and Brett Hulsey had a love child... Romney tapped Ryan for VP and in exchange Ryan and his wife present the love child to the world as their own.

Now this incident at the park, where Hulsey's fatherly instincts are calling to him (poor man is very remorseful) threatens to blow the lid off this affair and bring out the truth to the American people for the first time.

I'm with Haz that it's really strange there hasn't been an iota of discussion of the minority sex tourism claims regarding Mark Pocan. Maybe Sly can interview Pocan next?

The accuser, Dr. Glen Barry, was quite the celebrity when he claimed Scott Walker was a bad college student; stories that were published in virtually every paper in the state. If he was a credible authority then, what's different now?

Phish bassist Mike Gordon, 38, was arrested Monday, August 11th, on charges of child endangerment after he was found with a nine-year-old girl in a secluded boathouse during a show by the Dead in Jones Beach, New York.

According to a statement released by Major Richard O'Donnell of the New York State Park Police, Gordon was charged with a misdemeanor count of child endangerment and trespassing. "The arrest was the result of a complaint by the mother of a nine-year-old girl," reads the statement. "The mother became concerned when she could not locate her daughter in the backstage area."

The uninjured child was reunited with her family shortly after Gordon's arrest.

According to New York's WNBC television, Gordon told police that he was taking "art photos" of the girl.

The girl's father -- who, along with Gordon, was an invited guest backstage -- has been identified as a leader of a Hell's Angels chapter. Gordon is reported to have been held by venue security and members of the motorcycle club until police arrived, with WNBC adding that the Angels "were not gentle with the sensitive areas of the rock star's body."

A joint statement credited to Gordon and the girl's family and released Tuesday by Phish's label, Elektra Records, reads, "We have had several discussions regarding the situation that occurred at Jones Beach. It is now clear to all involved that this was an unfortunate misunderstanding, and we look forward to putting this matter behind us."

Gordon is due to appear in the First District Court of Nassau County on September 29th to face the charges, which could result in more than a year of jail time, according to Rick Hinshaw, spokesperson for the Nassau County District Attorney's office. Hinshaw said the DA's office could not yet comment on the specifics of the case.

Kaity Tong, of Eyewitness News.. is promising to get to the bottom of this story, even if she has to move to Madison and albeit temporarily, subject herself to living in a State with a Republican governor..

Lem, I've known two people railroaded by parents who were concerned about their kids over what turned out to be absolutely nothing, and this smells almost the same.

(The difference being I don't actually know Hulsey personally. As I say, he's very sanctimonious and an odious political hack. But being a predator of the public purse does not also mean he is a child predator. So I'm very suspicious of the every one, including the parents who don't watch their kid as he splashes others, but suddenly are concerned when a man is near them).

And this is why you avoid even the appearance of impropriety whenever possible. It's why smart male managers are rarely, if ever, alone with female staff members, and male teachers do their darndest to never be alone with any students.

Because a lot of people don't give the benefit of the doubt in some cases, even if they should.

You see, *poses professorially * the camera itself is an item of interest that makes the photographer approachable. So have your tiny notebook, or your cell. But this situation is reversed from that. The potential stalker went wrong by not acknowledging the adults. It's through them that he gets the pictures of kids playing. Goes like this:

Hi. Are those your kids out there? You know what? I think I could get some really good shots out there, if you'd like to have them, it happens I have a really good lens on this thing today that think can pull that right in. I think it's possible to get some good pics, possibly. I can email them to you, if you'd like. Shame to miss this action. Free. It's a hobby. I'll take them off my hard drive.

Sometimes it happens, you see the cutest things. They do something around here, I'll have to catch this sometime because I see it all the time, just last week even, school kids are walking in line holding hands to keep them together and they obey. I actually remember doing that, the teacher saying, "everyone hold hands" and me thinking, even then, "oh shit, this again." In my last neighborhood a mile away from here, a day care center took the kids out in the neighborhood every day and they used a rope. Each little kid had to hold onto the rope. So they snake around the neighborhood.

They also come piling out of school busses eager to do their field trips. Once I had my camera and just sat there snap snap snap snap snap rather like a perv, snapping pics of the kids skipping off to the museum.

Or perhaps you're sitting there with your telephoto and a kid begins doing something eminently photographable like flipping backflips off the sidewalk. It's by all means all right to snap away. So that he is caught is mid air five times, and people walk by as if nothing at all odd is happening. The jumper is approachable too, he wouldn't mind seeing these himself.

But if you're using one of those pocket point and shoots, then your SOL because those are not good items of conversation.

Speaking of pictures

Would you like to see a picture of a bottle?

It's the cutest little thing. Got it for $2.00 (ignore $6.00 shipping, that's irrelevant, you big silly) It's round and bumpy and has a short crooked neck. We like crooked neck bottles for hummingbird feeders.

You're thinking, It's too small, and it is too small, but there will be a dozen of things like these so the all must be small or filling them will be a drag.

So that's the beginning.

I also found ink bottles that made me laugh because they had the same idea as imhotep. Imhotep built the pyramids as a roofless building already destroyed by earthquake, and these bottles are designed to lay flat as if already spilled. So the bottle is like a blob with the opening aiming up at an angle, for the insertion of a quill pen. A glass blob with a bent spout, perfect for hummingbirds, and perfect for my size.

You see how the glass blob bottle came about. It was a problem, the bottles tipping over all the time. That's the worst thing that could happen besides catching on fire or perhaps having your papers splattered with your own blood by having been shot, those two thing would be worse than spilling a bottle of ink, but a problem common enough to design the bottle like that.

They blew the blob of molten glass into a mold for an ordinary in bottle but removed it while still hot and still pliable and forced it, coaxed it into a fallen position and bent the opening upward. There are similar bottles more angular, this is angular too but its angularity is not showing so much, the others are way angular and I like this one best. For the birds. Think of the birds.

If you remember we had a discussion a while back about a kid needing help (I think in Battery Park, NYC) and how many of us guys said that it was very dangerous for a man to interact with a strange child, to the point where it had to be consideration even when doing something appropriate or good, as it could easily be misinterpreted by our current paranoid culture and legal system. We were told that was ridiculous and paranoid, yet right here you see it in action.

I could easily see myself doing what he did in a playful moment. At least I would have a few years ago, but now I would imagine a scenario like this, and avoid contact of any kind.

I don't see what was wrong here, other than the other adults overreacted. A grown man basically has to consider children to be radioactive. It's pretty sad.

I don't know, but I have to assume that pedophilia is no more common than it was 30 years ago, yet today we act like it's part of every man's character. Nobody is above suspicion.

Things have changed a lot since when I was a kid and men and kids were trusted together routinely, and I don't remember it being the source of any problem. Men and boys were even routinely naked together at pools or the YMCA, and I never saw or heard of anyone being assaulted.

What has happened to us? Is pedophilia really the epidemic we seem to believe, or is this just overreaction? I know that overreaction itself is epidemic in our culture.

Maybe our culture's change in attitude has actually made pedophilia more common. The more taboo we make man/ child interaction, the more it triggers pedophilia, as when the flash of a woman's ankle used to be as exciting once upon a time.

That's a thing about hang glider pilots I noticed. They were not really team sport people. As a group they are unique. They'd hang around waiting for conditions. That meant they weren't doing ordinary weekend things and killed time waiting to do something extraordinary all by themselves, something they cannot share. They formed a circle and played hacky sack together. That's like the opposite of a team sport, it's like a cooperation thing. They were all very nice people.

I had a Harrier II. It was considered fancy with its swivel keel mechanism. The keel does not swivel, the crossbar does, the mechanism is affixed to the keel, it allows the wing to shift an inch or so. That allows it to turn quickly. Like a hawk. I imagine hawks turn quickly. Maybe hawks don't turn quickly, but the Harrier II sure does.

You see *strikes a pose* when you're flying along and one wing suddenly lifts it means you flew through a thermal bubble. The invisible bubble of warm air is stretched out and if you are quick enough you can spin around and put both wings into the invisible thermal bubble and be uplifted. That's where your rush is. That uplift. Like a swing set, a really tall one, and you get that thing cranking and you lay back on the upswing and sit up on the downswing and get the most tremendous rush in blam-o right in your stomach and you must clutch the chains of the swing just to not fall off. And then there's jumping off too but that's another swing-related thing and right now I'm talking about the rush that you know as a child. The rush. The Harrier II can turn on a dime and deliver the rush because of the swivel mechanism.

So there's that.

I didn't know it at the time but my sail was the gayest sail on the training hills. Three training hills, one north of Boulder. And I mean GAY!

It was beautiful. A rainbow. A strikingly beautiful goddamn rainbow. Everybody loved that thing. They loved it more than I did. That made it extremely easy to sell when the time came. Everybody wanted it. I sold it in one minute. No thirty seconds. No, five seconds. I sold it in five seconds, it was that beautiful.

I owned it for four years. At home it was stored above the garage door when the garage door is opened. The garage door must be closed to access the simple pulley system. The rolled up glider lifted off the car and tied into place, then the garage door could open and close unhindered. Clever, eh?

That did screw up my car's bumper's. Brackets were attached to the bumpers front and back, then tubes fit into the brackets with a T shape on top. All that was homemade. Everybody pretty much stayed clear of me on the highway.

I took it to work on top of my car and had it in the lot all day. Everyone at the FRB knew that was mine and knew I was strange because of that. But other people did strange things too so that got me off the hook. Rodeo bull rider, square dance champion, they wear very strange clothes, stairwell runners for charity, catchers of eggs dropped from tall buildings contest for charity winners, strange things that let my strange thing off the hook. It's very easy to explain to anybody who asked, to fly like a bird. Duh.

Planes are so passé. Everybody flies those. The small ones are like Volkswagens with wings. They're all technical and engines and fuel and math and sciences and calculations and flight plans and communications and shit. Birds just do it.

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"Hey Ann--any chance we get to comment on child sex predator tourist Mark Pocan or do you just vote for him?"

I'd like to hear the facts on that topic, but I can't imagine him not winning at this point, knowing this district, which was drawn, self-advantagingly by the GOP, to be ultra-secure for the Democrats.

Why is this story coming up now, after the primary? It seems really unfair to throw this mud now.

Concering the charge that Mark Pocan is a confessed child sex predator-I clicked the link and read all of the posts at that guy's blog including the one where he makes his charge against Pocan. The guy-Dr. Glen Barry-is clearly a serious nut job.

That may be true, Jay Retread Who Sometimes Goes By the Name Phil And Heaven Knows What Else, but YOU are an unserious nut job calling Dr. Glen Barry a serious nut job. So I think we'll have to consider the source.

Spent Sunday at Wingra beach with my granddaughter where there was lots of splashing going on between kids and kids and adults and kids and my take is that if any kid wasn't having fun being splashed on, they leave the area. If the two girls were still in the line of splash after Hulsey's swim, it seems like there was little danger involved--more likely just fun, and the most an adult should do in that case is say be careful and look for their parents. I don't know if disorderly conduct describes the actions of Hulsey, but creepy does seem to fit.

At this moment, for good or ill, Brett Hulsey is the face of Progressive Democrats in Wisconsin. When faced with a dubious charge,instead of pushing back the hysteria of creep, standing up to anti civil liberty, and asserting the moral rightness of his actions (which should have been simply protecting children), Brett Hulsey pled no contest.

Brett Hulsey was a joke before this event (he even went on WIBA every other week!) and he is a joke after it. Only in your obsessively right wing simple mind is he the face of Progressive Democrats in Wisconsin. For almost every Democrat I know he was and is their least favorite.

"When faced with a dubious charge,instead of pushing back the hysteria of creep, standing up to anti civil liberty, and asserting the moral rightness of his actions (which should have been simply protecting children), Brett Hulsey pled no contest."

Also, in the WDTY interview, he kept talking about how the 2 police officers weren't writing down what he said. That doesn't seem as important as these other things, so why was that the injustice he talked about? That was very strange, and it was his talking point on the legal process.

"Brett Hulsey was a joke before this event (he even went on WIBA every other week!) and he is a joke after it. Only in your obsessively right wing simple mind is he the face of Progressive Democrats in Wisconsin. For almost every Democrat I know he was and is their least favorite."

Did all these many Democrats oppose him in the primary? If he's so loathed, why did he waltz up to an unopposed reelection?

Are you going to mount a write-in campaign or something? Release the Manski?

"Spent Sunday at Wingra beach with my granddaughter where there was lots of splashing going on between kids and kids and adults and kids and my take is that if any kid wasn't having fun being splashed on, they leave the area. If the two girls were still in the line of splash after Hulsey's swim, it seems like there was little danger involved--more likely just fun, and the most an adult should do in that case is say be careful and look for their parents. I don't know if disorderly conduct describes the actions of Hulsey, but creepy does seem to fit."

Splashing is the most ordinary horseplay in the water. Hulsey should have been much more concrete about why he perceived this as potentially dangerous, such that a strange adult should intervene.

He did refer to the 2 girls as "little girls," maybe more than once, but the boy was 9 and the girls were 6. But maybe he couldn't fairly present the boy as a bully. The police report describes him coming up behind the boy and scaring him.

Haz, do you know whether or not Dr. Glen Barry was part of that smear of Scott Walker, days ahead of the recall election, in which Walker was supposed to have committed some alleged crimes/sins/bad acts such as, I vaguely recall, fathering a child out of wedlock?

@Jay You had a chance to be relevant, and you threw it away. I'm sorry I wasted time talking to you. It's not interesting to think about who you are, but what you're saying could have had some meaning if you'd addressed the questions I asked.

Well, it's not the first or last time that we have a pervert as a politician. There's no way to explain Hulsey's behavior other than he's a pervert. There isn't a person mentioned in the police report, other than Hulsey, who doesn't seem to think that Hulsey is a pervert. But only a pervert would claim that he can splash some children at a beach.....